Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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SUGGESTING ANDIOR PROVIDING AD SERVING CONSTRAINT
INFORMATION
A. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns advertising, such as on-line advertising.
More particularly, the present invention concerns helping on-line advertisers
to
target their ads.
B. Description of Related Art
Advertising using traditional media, such as television, radio, newspapers
and magazines, is well known. Advertisers have used these types of media to
reach a large audience with their advertisements ("ads"). To reach a more
responsive audience, advertisers have used demographic studies. For example,
advertisers may use broadcast events such as football games to advertise beer
and action movies to a younger male audience. However, even with
demographic studies and entirely reasonable assumptions about the typical
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audience of various media outlets, advertisers recognize that much of their ad
budget is simply wasted because the target audience is not interested in the
ad
they are receiving.
Interactive media, such as the Internet, has the potential for better
targeting of advertisements. For example, some websites provide an information
search functionality that is based on query keywords entered by the user
seeking
information. This user query can be used as an indicator of the type of
information of interest to the user. By comparing the user query to a list of
keywords specified by an advertiser, it is possible to provide some form of
targeted advertisements to these search service users. An example of such a
system is the Adwords system offered by Google, Inc.
While systems such as Adwords have provided advertisers the ability to
better target ads, advertisers would like to have help so that they can target
their
ads more effectively and/or more easily.
It would be useful, therefore, to have methods, apparatus and data
structures for helping advertisers to target their ads more effectively and/or
more
easily.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention addresses this and other needs by identifying
targeting information (also referred to as ad "serving constraints" or
"targeting
criteria") for an advertisement. Targeting information may be identified by
extracting topics or concepts from, and/or generating topics or concepts based
on, ad information, such as for example advertising creatives, information
from a
Web page to which an ad is linked, etc. Targeting information may also be
identified by extracting topics or concepts from, and/or generating topics or
concepts based on, other information relevant to the delivery of an ad, such
as
for example documents (e.g., Web pages) on which an ad is likely to be shown,
documents (e.g., Web pages) on which an advertiser is or may be interested in
advertising, documents (e.g., Web pages) on which competitive, analogous, or
complementary products or services are advertised or to which such are linked,
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documents (e.g., Web pages) on which competitive, analogous or
complementary products or services are offered or described, information
related
to the geographic targeting or temporal targeting of an ad, documents (e.g.,
Web
pages) similar to any of the above identified documents or sources of
information, etc. or in general any other document (e.g., Web page) of
interest to
the advertiser.
Certain exemplary embodiments can provide a method for generating serving
constraints for an advertisement, the method comprising: a) identifying a
target
document; b) generating concepts from information associated with the target
document; and c) storing at least one of the concepts in association with the
advertisement as one or more serving constraints to be used to target the
serving of the
advertisement, wherein the at least one of the concepts stored in association
with the
advertisement had not been previously associated with the advertisement as a
serving
constraint.
Certain exemplary embodiments can provide a method comprising: a)
identifying a target document; b) generating concepts from information
associated with
the target document; c) associating at least one of the concepts with the
advertisement
as one or more candidate serving constraints; d) sending the one or more
candidate
serving constraints to a user for presentation; e) determining, after sending
the one or
more candidate serving constraints to a user for presentation, an intention of
the user
with regard to the presentation of the one or more candidate serving
constraints based
on a manual input of the user; f) accepting at least one of the one or more
candidate
candidate serving constraints responsive to the determined intention of the
user; and g)
storing the accepted at least one of the candidate serving constraints in
association with
the advertisement as one or more serving constraints to be used to target the
serving of
the advertisement.
Certain exemplary embodiments can provide apparatus for generating serving
constraints for an advertisement, the apparatus comprising: a) means for
identifying a
target document; b) means for generating concepts from information associated
with
the target document; and c) means for storing at least one of the concepts in
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association with the advertisement as one or more serving constraints to be
used to
target the serving of the advertisement, wherein the at least one of the
concepts stored
in association with the advertisement had not been previously associated with
the
advertisement as a serving constraint.
In other embodiments, the topics or concepts may be words
or relevant queries associated with a Web page of interest. In another
embodiment of the invention, the topics or concepts may be clusters. Thus, in
one embodiment of the present invention, keyword suggestions may be provided
to advertisers for keyword triggered advertisements based on topical or
conceptual clusters extracted from one or more documents (e.g., Web pages) of
interest. Alternatively, or in addition, concept, topic and/or cluster
suggestions
may be provided to advertisers for concept, topic and/or cluster triggered
advertisements.
Additional aspects of the present invention are directed to computer
systems and to machine-readable media having features relating to the
foregoing
aspects.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a
part of this specification, illustrate an embodiment of the invention and,
together
with the description, explain the invention. In the drawings,
Fig. I is a diagram illustrating an environment within which the invention
may be implemented;
Fig. 2 is a diagram functionally illustrating an advertising system
consistent with the invention;
Fig. 3 is a diagram illustrating apparatus with which the invention may be
implemented;
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Fig. 4 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method for identifying (e.g.,
candidate) targeting criteria for an advertiser, consistent with the present
invention;
Fig. 5 is an exemplary apparatus that may be used to perform various acts
or store various information in a manner consistent with principles of the
present
invention.
Fig. 6 is an example in which a Web page is a target document.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
The following detailed description of the invention refers to the
accompanying drawings. The detailed description does not limit the invention.
The present invention involves methods, apparatus and data structures for
determining (e.g., candidate) targeting criteria from a target document or
documents. The targeting criteria may then be provided to an advertiser as
suggested targeting criteria. In one implementation, the target document is a
Web page and the advertisements are electronic files that are capable of being
rendered on, or in association with, that Web page. A set, such as a list, of
concepts or topics corresponding to the Web page may be generated by
analyzing the content of the Web page. There are a variety of techniques by
which this may be performed, one of which is by computing a term vector for
the
Web page and selecting the top N terms from that vector. The list of concepts
or
topics may then be provided as targeting criteria associated with an
advertisement (e.g., keywords specified for the advertisements).
Those skilled in the art will recognize that many other implementations are
possible, consistent with the present invention.
A. Exemplary Environment and Architecture
Fig. 1 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary environment within which the
invention may be used. The exemplary environment includes an advertiser 110,
an advertising system 120, an advertisement consumer 130, and an advertising
target 140.
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Advertiser 110 may be the party that directly sells the goods or services
being advertised (e.g., Amazon.com) or an agent acting on the advertiser's
behalf. The advertisement desired by advertiser 110 may exist in a variety of
forms. For example, the advertisement may be a standard print advertisement,
an online advertisement, a text advertisement, and image advertisement, an
audio advertisement, a video advertisement, audio/visual advertisements, or
any
other type of sensory message, or combination of the foregoing desired.
Advertising system 120 interfaces with both the advertiser 110 and the
advertisement consumer 130. It may perform a variety of functions, as
explained
in more detail below in reference to Fig. 2.This invention may be used with
such
an advertising system 120.
Advertisement consumer 130 is the entity that will issue a request for
advertisements to advertising system 120, obtain the advertisements from
advertising system 120, and present the advertisement to the advertising
target
140. Typically, the advertisement consumer is the entity that provides the
content with which the advertisement is to be associated. In one
implementation,
the advertising consumer 130 is a search engine, such as that employed by
Google, Inc. at www.google.com.
Advertising target 140 is the individual (or set of individuals) who
ultimately
receive the advertisement. In the case of visual advertisements, for example,
the
advertisement target 140 is the person who views the advertisement.
Fig. 2 is a diagram functionally illustrating an advertising system
consistent with the invention. The system includes an ad campaign entry and
management component 210, a tools component 220, a billing component 230,
one or more databases 240, an ad consumer interface component 250, an ad
selection component 260, an ad ordering component 270, an ad serving
component 280, and a statistics engine component 290. If the present invention
is to be used with such an advertising system, it will primarily concern tools
component 220. To help understand the invention, other components of the
advertising system will be explained below. Furthermore, although Fig. 2 shows
a particular arrangement of components constituting advertisement system 120,
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those skilled in the art will recognize that not all components need be
arranged
as shown, not all components are required, and that other components may be
added to, or replace, those shown.
Ad entry and management component 210 is the component by which the
advertiser enters information required for an advertising campaign and manages
the campaign. In one embodiment, an ad campaign contains one or more
advertisements that are related in some manner. For example, the Ford Motor
Company may have an ad campaign for zero percent financing, which could
contain a series of advertisements related to that topic. Among the other
things
that could be provided by an advertiser through ad entry and management
component 210 are the following: one or more advertising creatives (simply
referred to as "ads" or "advertisements"), one or more set of keywords or
topics
associated with those creatives (which may be used as targeting information
for
the ads), geographic targeting information, a value indication for the
advertisement, start date, end date, etc. The data required for, or obtained
by,
ad entry and management component 210 resides in one of the databases 240.
In one embodiment of the ad system, the ad entry and management component
210 may perform operations such as those described in: U.S. Patent
Application Serial No. 10/340,867, issued to U. S. Patent No. 7,546,625, on
June 9, 2009, entitled "PAUSING ONE OR MORE ADS, ONE OR MORE AD
GROUPS, AND/OR ONE OR MORE AD CAMPAIGNS", filed on January 10, 2003_
Tools component 220 contains a variety of tools designed to help the
advertiser 110 create, monitor, and manage its campaigns. For example, tools
component 220 may contain a tool for helping advertiser 110 estimate the
number of impressions an ad will receive for a particular keyword or topic.
Similarly, tools component 220 may be used to help advertiser 110 define
targeting criteria, such as a list of keywords, for a given advertisement.
Other
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possible tools may be provided as well. Depending on the nature of the tool,
one
or more databases 240 may be used to gather or store information.
Billing component 230 helps perform billing-related functions. For
example, billing component 230 generates invoices for a particular advertiser
110
or ad campaign. In addition, billing component 230 may be used by advertiser
110 to monitor the amount being expended for its various campaigns. The data
required for, or obtained by, billing component 230 resides in a database 240.
Databases 240 contain a variety of data used by advertising system 120.
In addition to the information mentioned above in reference to ad entry and
management system 210, databases 240 may contain statistical information
about what ads have been shown, how often they have been shown, the number
of times they have been selected, who has selected those ads, how often
display
of the ad has led to consummation of a transaction, etc. Although the
databases
240 are shown in Fig. 2 as one unit, one of ordinary skill in the art will
recognize
that multiple databases may be employed for gathering and storing information
used in advertising system 120.
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Ad consumer interface 250 Is a component that interfaces with ad
consumer 130 to obtain or send information. For example, ad consumer 130
may send a request for one or more advertisements to ad consumer interface
250. The request may include information such as the site requesting the
advertisement, any information available to aid in selecting the
advertisement,
the number of ads requested, etc. In response, ad consumer interface 250 may
provide one or more advertisements to ad consumer 130. In addition, ad
consumer 130 may send information about the performance of the advertisement
back to the ad system via the ad consumer interface 250. This may include, for
example, the statistical information described above in reference to a
database
240. The data required for, or obtained by, ad consumer interface component
250 resides in a database 240.
Ad selection component 260 receives a request for a specified number of
advertisements, coupled with information to help select the appropriate
advertisements. This information may include, for example, a search query
specified by an end user. Alternatively, or in addition, as described in more
detail
below, this information may include data related to the content of the page
for
which the advertisements are being requested.
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U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 10/314,427 (published US 2004/0059708 on
March 25, 2004), entitled "METHODS AND APPARTUS FOR SERVING RELEVANT
ADVERTISEMENTS", filed on December 6, 2002, and/or U.S. Patent Application
Serial No. 10/375, 900 (issued to U.S. Patent No. 7,136,875 on November 14,
2006),
entitled "SERVING ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON CONTENT", filed on February 26,
2003.
Ad ordering component 270 receives a list of relevant ads from ad
selection component 260 and determines a preference order (or some other
preference attribute such as size, position, volume, etc.) in which they
should be
rendered to an end user. For example, relevant ads may be ordered based on a
value indication associated with each ad. These ordered ads may be provided to
an ad serving component 280. In one embodiment of the ad system, the ad
ordering component 270 may perform operations such as those described in:
U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 10/112,654 (published US 2003/0046161 on
March 6, 2003), entitled "METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR ORDERING
ADVERTISEMENTS BASED ON PERFORMANCE INFORMATION AND PRICE
INFORMATION", filed on March 29, 2002.
Ad serving component 280 receives an ordered list of ads from ad
ordering component 270, and formats that list into a manner suitable for
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presenting to ad consumer 130. This may involve, for example, rendering the
ads into hypertext markup language (HTML), into a proprietary data format,
etc.
Statistics engine 290 contains information pertaining to the selection and
performance of advertisements. For example, statistics engine 290 may log the
information provided by ad consumer 130 as part of an ad request, the ads
selected for that request by ad selection component 260, the order selected by
ad ordering component 270, and the presentation of the ads by ad serving
component 280. In addition, statistics engine 290 may log information about
what happens with the advertisement once it has been provided to ad consumer
130. This includes information such as on what location the ad was provided,
what the response was to the advertisement, what the effect was of the
advertisement, etc.
Online ads, such as those used in the exemplary systems described
above with reference to Figures 1 and 2, or any other system, may have various
features. Such features may be specified by an application and/or an
advertiser.
These features are referred to as "ad features" below. For example, in the
case
of a text ad, ad features may include a title line, ad text, executable code,
an
embedded link, etc. In the case of an image ad, ad features may additionally
include Images, etc. Depending on the type of online ad, ad features may
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include one or more of the following: text, a link, an audio file, a video
file, an
image file, executable code, embedded information, etc.
When an online ad is served, one or more parameters may be used to
describe how, when, and/or where the ad was served. These parameters are
referred to as "serving parameters" below. Serving parameters may include, for
example, one or more of the following: features of (including information on)
a
page on which the ad is served (including one or more topics or concepts
determined to be associated with the page, information or content located on
or
within the page, information about the page such as the host of the page (e.g.
AOL, Yahoo, etc.), the importance of the page as measured by e.g. traffic,
freshness, quantity and quality of links to or from the page etc., the
location of the
page within a directory structure, etc.), a search query or search results
associated with the serving of the ad, a user characteristic (e.g., their
geographic
location, the language they use, the type of browser used, previous page
views,
previous behavior), a host or affiliate site (e.g., America Online, Google,
Yahoo)
that initiated the request that the ad is served in response to, an absolute
position
of the ad on the page on which it is served, a position (spatial or temporal)
of the
ad relative to other ads served, an absolute size of the ad, a size of the ad
relative to other ads, a color of the ad, a number of other ads served, types
of
other ads served, time of day served, time of week served, time of year
served,
etc. Naturally, there are other serving parameters that may be used in the
context of the invention.
Although serving parameters may be extrinsic to ad features, they may be
associated with an ad as conditions or constraints. When used as serving
conditions or constraints, sucji serving parameters are referred to simply as
"serving constraints". Serving constraints may also be referred to as
"targeting
criteria". For example, in some systems, an advertiser may be able to specify
that its ad is only to be served on weekdays, no lower than a certain
position,
only to users in a certain location, etc. As another example, in some systems,
an
advertiser may specify that its ad is to be served only if a page or search
query
includes certain keywords or phrases. As yet another example, in some
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systems, an advertiser may specify that its ad is to be served only if a Web
page
being served includes certain topics or concepts, or falls under a particular
cluster or clusters, or some other classification or classifications.
"Ad information" may include any combination of ad features, ad serving
constraints, information derivable from ad features or ad serving constraints
(referred to as "ad derived information"), and/or information related to the
ad
(referred to as "ad related information"), as well as an extensions of such
information (e.g., information derived from ad related information).
A "document" is to be broadly interpreted to include any machine-readable
and machine-storable work product. A document may be a file, a combination of
files, one or more files with embedded links to other files, etc.; the files
may be of
any type, such as text, audio, image, video, etc. Parts of a document to be
rendered to an end user can be thought of as "content" of the document. Ad
spots in the document may be defined by embedded information or instructions.
In the context of the Internet, a common document is a Web page. Web pages
often include content and may include embedded information (such as meta
information, hyperlinks, etc.) and/or embedded instructions (such as
Javascript,
etc.). In many cases, a document has a unique, addressable, storage location
and can therefore be uniquely identified by this addressable location. A
universal
resource locator (URL) is a unique address used to access information on the
Internet.
"Document information" may include any information included in the
document, information derivable from information included in the document
(referred to as "document derived information"), and/or information related to
the
document (referred to as "document related information"), as well as an
extensions of such information (e.g., information derived from related
information). An example of document derived information is a classification
based on textual content of a document. Examples of document related
information include document information from other documents with links to
the
instant document, as well as document information from other documents to
which the instant document links.
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Content from a document may be rendered on a "content rendering
application or device". Examples of content rendering applications include an
Internet browser (e.g., Explorer or Netscape), a media player (e.g., an MP3
player, a Realnetworks streaming audio file player, etc.), a viewer (e.g., an
Abobe Acrobat pdf reader), etc.
Fig. 3 is a diagram illustrating an architecture in which the present
invention may be implemented. The architecture includes multiple client
devices
302, a server device 310, and a network 301, which may be, for example, the
Internet. Client devices 302 each include a computer-readable medium 309,
such as random access memory, coupled to a processor 308. Processor 308
executes program instructions stored in memory 309. Client devices 302 may
also include a number of additional external or internal devices, such as,
without
limitation, a mouse, a CD-ROM, a keyboard, and a display. Thus, as will be
appreciated by those skilled in the art, the client devices may be personal
computers, personal digital assistances, mobile phones, content players, etc.
Through client devices 302, requestors 305 can communicate over
network 301 with each other and with other systems and devices coupled to
network 301, such as server device 310. Requestors 305 may, for example, be
advertisers 110, advertisement consumer 130, or advertising target 140.
Similar to client devices 302, server device 310 may include a processor
311 coupled to a computer readable memory 312. Server device 310 may
additionally include a secondary storage element, such as a database 240.
Client processors 308 and server processor 311 can be any of a number
of well known micro-processors, such as processors from Intel Corporation, of
Santa Clara, California. In general, client device 302 may be any type of
computing platform connected to a network and that interacts with application
programs, such as a digital assistant or a "smart" cellular telephone or
pager.
Server 310, although depicted as a single computer system, may be
implemented as a network of computer processors.
Memory 312 may contain a number of programs, such as the components
described above in reference to Fig. 2.
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B. Exemplary Methods
Fig. 4 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method 400 for determining
(e.g., candidate) targeting criteria based on a target document, consistent
with
the present invention. For purposes of illustrating the invention in the
context of
an ad system such as the one depicted in Figure 2, it may be understood that
the
method 400 described herein may take place as part of the tools component 220,
although those skilled in the art will recognize that it need not take place
in that
component 220, or that component 220 alone.
The exemplary method 400 is not limited by the order shown in the flow
diagram. The method 400 identifies one or more target documents. (Block 410)
The target document(s) may be the Web page linked with an advertisement, Web
pages on which an advertiser is interested in showing its ads, or any other
document as previously described. Alternatively, or in addition, the target
document or documents may be determined algorithmically, based on ad
information. Alternatively, or in addition, the target documents may be
specified
by an advertising user.
Concepts or topics are extracted and/or generated from document
information associated with the identified target documents. (Block 420) At
least
some of the concepts or topics extracted and/or generated are then associated
with the ad at issue as targeting criteria and/or potential targeting
criteria. (Block
430) In one embodiment, potential targeting criteria are simply suggestions,
though such potential targeting criteria may also be used to automatically
target
ads. In one embodiment, potential targeting criteria is used as targeting
criteria
unless removed (e.g., by the advertiser). In another embodiment, potential
targeting criteria is not used as targeting criteria unless selected for
inclusion
(e.g., by the advertiser). In yet another embodiment, a first set of the
potential
targeting criteria is only used as targeting criteria if it (or constituents
of the set) is
selected for inclusion, while another set of the potential targeting criteria
is used
unless it (or constituents of the set) is removed. Although not shown, the
topics
or concept may also be useful in generating or suggesting ad information, such
as text in an ad creative.
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Extracting and/or Generating Concepts or Topics
One way to identify a topic corresponding to the target document is by
analyzing some or all text within the target document. It could be determined
that
one or more of each term (word or phrase) that appears in the title of the
target
document corresponds to a topic of the target document. Alternatively, it
could
be determined that one or more of each term that appears in the body of the
target document corresponds to a topic of the target document. In a simple
case,
each term within the target document could be identified as a topic. A
slightly
more complex approach would be to identify a term as a topic if it appears in
the
target document more than N times, such as N=2 (and indeed such a threshold-
based approach could be used whenever terms within text are being analyzed).
Even more complex analysis could be performed, such as by using a term vector
for the target document which assigns weights to each term. For example, terms
that appear frequently in the target document may be assigned a relatively
higher
weight than those that appear less frequently.
In addition, the weighting could be adjusted to give higher weight to terms
that appear less frequently in a collection, such as a collection to which the
document belongs or the general collection of documents. In any situation
where
terms within text are assigned weights or scores, those resulting scores may
be
used to determine which terms will be identified as topics for the target
document. For example, it may be determined that only the top scoring term
would constitute a topic for the target document. Alternatively, or in
addition, it
may be determined that the top Z terms (or a subset thereof) will constitute
topics
for the target document, with Z being some defined number. Alternatively, or
in
addition, it may be determined that terms having a score that exceeds Y (or a
subset thereof) will constitute topics for the target document, with Y being
some
defined number. Thus, topics may be determined based on absolute and/or
relative criteria.
Alternatively, or in addition to using text or other information within the
target document, meta-information associated with the target document may be
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used. In the context of a Web page, this may be anchor text. One or more such
brief descriptions may be used to revise (figuratively) the target document by
supplementing or replacing some or all of its content with the brief
descriptions.
So, for example, the topic could be identified from the combination of the
target
document's title and the brief descriptions of the target document.
Alternatively, or in addition to the brief descriptions from these references,
the references themselves may be used. For example, a reference from another
document to the target document may be used as an indication that the two
documents are similar. Alternatively, or in addition, a reference from the
target
document to another document may be used as an indication that the two
documents are similar. On this basis, the content (or meta-information) of the
other document may be used to revise (figuratively) the target document by
supplementing or replacing its content with that of the other document. The
revised target document's content may then be analyzed using the techniques
described above to identify one or more topics.
Alternatively, or addition to using the content (including perhaps meta-
data) associated with a target document, other techniques may be used to
identify one or more topics for the target document. For example, the top N
queries (or subset thereof) that result in a reference to the target document
could
be determined to constitute a topic for the target document, with N being some
defined number. These may be, for example, text queries in a search engine
that yield a result that links to the target document or web page.
Alternatively, or
in addition, the content of other similar documents (e.g., in the same
collection as
the target document, in the same category as the target document, etc.) may be
used to revise (figuratively) the content of the target document. Any of the
techniques described above may then be used to analyze the target document to
identify one or more topics. In the context of Web pages, this may be other
Web
pages that are stored within a subdirectory of related pages on the same host
as
the target Web page. Alternatively, or in addition, any technique for
classifying
the target document into a set of one or more topics or categories may be
used.
Even the search query history of one or more users who visit the target
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document (or target Web page) may be used to identify a topic for the target
document, on the theory that a visit to the target document that is temporally
proximate to that search query history indicates that the user thought the
concepts were related.
Using one or more of the various techniques described above, or other
techniques, one or more topics may be identified for the target document. Once
these topics have been identified, a variety of techniques may be used to
determine other topics that are related to those identified topics. For
example, a
thesaurus could be used to determine other topics (e.g., synonyms) that are
closely related to the identified topics, or that are conceptually similar to
the
identified topics.
For the sake of clarity, the foregoing references to "revising" the target
document are a figurative aid in understanding the use of additional
information
that is not literally within the target document. Those skilled in the art
will
recognize that the target document need not be actually revised to make use of
this additional information.
C. Exemplary Apparatus
Figure 5 is high-level block diagram of a machine 500 that may effect one
or more of the operations discussed above. The machine 500 basically includes
one or more processors 510, one or more input/output interface units 530, one
or
more storage devices 520, and one or more system buses and/or networks 540
for facilitating the communication of information among the coupled elements.
One or more input devices 532 and one or more output devices 534 may be
coupled with the one or more input/output interfaces 530.
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The one or more processors 510 may execute machine-executable
instructions (e.g., C or C++ running on the Solaris operating system available
from Sun Microsystems Inc. of Palo Alto, California or the Linux operating
system
widely available from a number of vendors such as Red Hat, Inc. of Durham,
North Carolina) to effect one or more aspects of the present invention. At
least a
portion of the machine executable instructions may be stored (temporarily or
more permanently) on the one or more storage devices 520 and/or may be
received from an external source via one or more input interface unit s530.
In one embodiment, the machine 500 may be one or more conventional
personal computers. In this case, the processing units 510 may be one or more
microprocessors. The bus 540 may include a system bus. The storage devices
520 may include system memory, such as read only memory (ROM) and/or
random access memory (RAM). The storage devices 520 may also include a
hard disk drive for reading from and writing to a hard disk, a magnetic disk
drive
for reading from or writing to a (e.g., removable) magnetic disk, and an
optical
disk drive for reading from or writing to a removable (magneto-) optical disk
such
as a compact disk or other (magneto-) optical media.
A user may enter commands and information into the personal computer
through input devices 532, such as a keyboard and pointing device (e.g., a
mouse) for example. Other input devices such as a microphone, a joystick, a
game pad, a satellite dish, a scanner, or the like, may also (or
alternatively) be
included. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing
unit(s) 510 through an appropriate interface 530 coupled to the system bus
540.
The output devices 534 may include a monitor or other type of display device,
which may also be connected to the system bus 540 via an appropriate
interface.
In addition to (or instead of) the monitor, the personal computer may include
other (peripheral) output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers
for
example.
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D. Illustrative Operations of an Exemplary Embodiment
Figure 6 illustrates operations of an exemplary embodiment of the
invention used in the context of suggesting keywords and other targeting
criteria
in the context of text ads with a link to an advertiser's Web page. As shown
in
Figure 6, a text-based ad 610 includes title text 620, body text 630, and a
link
640 to a desired Web page 660. One or more targeting criteria or serving
constraints 650 may be associated with the text-based ad 610.
As further illustrated in this example, the Web page 660 linked from the
text-based ad 610 includes further links (indicated by dashed arcs) to further
Web pages 662 and 664. Relevant queries 675, such as past queries that have
returned a link to Web page 660 and/or potential queries that would return a
link
to Web page 660 may be available (for example, from a search engine).
In this example, target documents 660, 662, 664 were identified (Recall,
e.g., block 410.) from the ad itself 610. In this example, topics or concepts
may
have been extracted and/or generated (Recall block 420.) from some or all of
the
information 670, and/or information from the ad 610 itself. Finally, some or
all of
these concepts or topics may be provided as candidate targeting criteria or
serving constraints 680 (Recall block 430.), such as suggested keywords,
geo-location serving constraints, and/or temporal serving constraints.
E. Conclusions
The foregoing description of preferred embodiments of the present
invention provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be
exhaustive or to limit the scope of the invention to the precise form
disclosed.
Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or
may
be acquired from practice of the invention.
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